I have not, ever, threatened Simon Singh with libel. I would not ever threaten anyone with libel. If I wanted to sue someone I would just do it, as I successfully did when a book of mine got plagiarized by a well-known author.

An interesting item from this week's Private Eye....(no 1325, picture of the BBC test card on the front cover). p.11.

LEGAL NEWS

For a self-styled "advocate for free speech", Simon Singh is spending a strange amount of time trying to silence others.

Singh won a justified libel victory in 2010 over the chiropractors (see Eyes passim), and now he claims he is againon the receiving end of a libel threat. This time, however, his martyr status is on shakier ground.

In an attempt to get the alternative and complimentary health magazine What Doctors Don't Tell You off the shelves, he has beenharanguing Comag, its distributor (which circulates the Eye and many other well-known magazines), sending bumptiousemails because he disapproves of the magazine's "sensationalist and pseudoscientific " comments.

When Comag politely pointed out that it was not responsible for the content of magazines it distributes, Singh refused to accept this argumentand continued his campaign until an exasperated Comag said it had taken legal advice and would if necessary defend its reputation against anythingdefamotory he might publish.

In focusing his attention on a magazine's distributor, Singh is starting down a path trodden by the likes of Robert Maxwell and Sir JamesGoldsmith - hardly fitting company for the "advocate for free speech".